SwiftVets.com

[Debs]

What an idiot - sounds like Lurch's entire campaign is as dumb as he is - it really is the gang that can't shoot straight.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041020-120133-8922r.htm

No Kerry apology for Cheney remark

By James G. Lakely
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Sen. John Kerry's campaign said yesterday that the presidential candidate will not apologize for bringing Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter into the last debate, insisting that he meant it as a compliment and denying that it has hurt the Democrat's ability to gain ground in post-debate polls.
"Senator Kerry stated a few days ago that it was meant as a positive comment," Kerry campaign spokesman Tad Devine said in a conference call with reporters yesterday. "We think that speaks for itself. It's not going to be the focus of the campaign in the days ahead."
The Bush campaign is convinced that Mr. Kerry's invocation of Mary Cheney when asked a question about homosexuality in the Oct. 13 debate backfired and kept the polls in favor of President Bush even though most Americans thought Mr. Kerry won the third and final televised showdown.
"It came across as creepy, and I think it turned a lot of voters off," said Bush campaign spokeswoman Nicolle Devenish.
Mr. Bush told the Associated Press on Monday that it was "inappropriate" for Mr. Kerry to have mentioned the vice president's daughter, and the Cheneys have expressed anger at the senator on the stump.
Miss Cheney's sister, Elizabeth Cheney, joined in the criticism of Mr. Kerry, saying yesterday that it was "unprecedented" for a presidential candidate to "exploit the child of one of his opponents for political gain."
"I thought that was out of bounds, and I think what you have seen as a result of that is a lot of folks across the country really wondering what sort of a person would do that," she told AP. "It was sort of an insight into the character of Senator Kerry."
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, broke with most in her party and publicly stated that Mr. Kerry might have made a mistake.
"I think he was trying to strike, actually, a sensitive note, [but] it might not have worked," she told Albany's WROW radio Monday, adding that she could "understand why some people might have been bothered" by Mr. Kerry's comment.
Kerry spokesman David Wade, however, was adamant that the candidate will not apologize, saying the Bush campaign was trying to keep the matter alive to cause a diversion from important issues.
"Apologize for honoring the Cheney family?" Mr. Wade said at a Kerry campaign stop in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. "If that's what George Bush thinks deserves an apology, then his record job loss, mess in Iraq and skyrocketing health-care costs must require a presidential pardon and untold acts of contrition. This is just another attempt to distract Americans' attention from the worst jobs record in 72 years."
Democratic political consultant Scott Segal said Mr. Kerry's debate remark had been intended to "demonstrate the hypocrisy of cluttering the Constitution" with an amendment defining marriage as between only a man and a woman, "while at the same time proudly supporting a gay family member."
However, Mr. Kerry failed to make that connection.
"Without that explanation, I think the statement left a bad aftertaste, particularly among those voters that think family members are just out of bounds in political discourse," Mr. Segal said.
There are some signs that Mr. Kerry's comment might have hurt him in some polls, especially among women.
A Gallup poll released this week showed that Mr. Kerry's 52 percent to 43 percent lead among women nearly had reversed itself after the debate, going 51 percent for Mr. Bush and 44 percent for Mr. Kerry.
A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll released yesterday showed that 64 percent of likely voters said Mr. Kerry's remark was inappropriate. Even a plurality of Democrats — 44 percent to 40 percent — agreed.
Although John Gorman, president of Opinion Dynamics, said "there's no strong evidence" that Mr. Kerry's insertion of Miss Cheney in the debate had any real effect, Republican pollster David Winston disagrees.
"What other event would drive this?" Mr. Winston said, noting that Mr. Kerry could have used openly homosexual friends, including fellow Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Barney Frank, to make the point.
"When Kerry brought it up, it was obviously a strategy," Mr. Winston said. "What it reflected was a meanness in John Kerry. That's a character-shaping aspect for voters. The fact that he insists that he was trying to say something positive about the Cheneys is so disingenuous and so cynical, it truly boggles the mind."
•Charles Hurt contributed to this report while following the Kerry campaign in Pennsylvania.
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"No greater love..."

[Debs]

Here is another article along the same lines that sums up Lurch very well.

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforksherald/news/opinion/9963124.htm

Posted on Wed, Oct. 20, 2004

Kerry's attacks reek of desperation

By David Brooks

WASHINGTON - John Kerry wasn't nominated because of his sparkling personality. He wasn't nominated because of his selfless commitment to causes larger than himself. He was nominated because he's a fighter. At the end of every campaign, he comes out brawling. This was the guy who could take on Bush.

So nobody could imagine how incompetent, crude and over-the-top Kerry has been in this final phase of the campaign. At this point, smart candidates are launching attacks that play up the doubts voters already have about their opponents. Incredibly, Kerry is launching attacks that play up doubts voters have about him. Over the past few days, he has underscored the feeling that he will say or do anything to further his career.

In so doing, he has managed to squelch any momentum he may have had coming out of the first two debates. Some polls have him stagnant against Bush. More polls show Bush recovering from the debate season and now pulling slightly ahead. The blunt truth is that Kerry is losing the final phase of this campaign.

Let's review the string of heavy-handed assaults. On Monday, Kerry told seniors in Florida that Bush is plotting a "January surprise" to cut their Social Security benefits by as much as 45 percent. "That's up to $500 a month less for food, for clothing, for the occasional gift for a grandchild."

As Kerry knows, that's ludicrous - it's a stale and transparent canard that Democrats have brought out in election after election, to less and less effect. President Bush has not entertained and would not entertain any plan that cut benefits to seniors. Bush sooner would give up any Social Security reform than cut benefits.

Kerry's second wild attack is that Bush would reinstate the draft. The administration, which hasn't even asked for trivial public sacrifices in a time of war, does not want to bring back the draft. The Pentagon does not want to bring back the draft. The Republican Party does not want to bring back the draft. Given the nature of military technology, it doesn't make sense to bring back the draft.

Kerry's third attack is the whole Mary Cheney thing. That's been hashed over enough. But remarkably, Kerry has not apologized. You use somebody's daughter to attack the father and his running mate. The parents are upset. The only decent thing is to apologize. If anything, an apology would make Kerry look admirable. But Kerry, in his permanent attack dog mode, can't do the decent and politically advantageous thing.

The fourth assault is Kerry's attack on the Bush administration's supposed "ban" on stem cell research. John Edwards's ludicrous statement that if Kerry was president, people such as Christopher Reeve would be able to get up and walk was only the culmination of a series of exaggerations about the possibilities of finding cures for Alzheimer's and spinal cord injuries.

I'm not trying to make a moral point here about sleazy campaigning. Politics ain't beanbag, and in the final days of a close campaign, exaggerations are the norm. I'm talking about competence and what this period says about Kerry and his campaign.

Why is he doing this? First, because in the insular Democratic world, George Bush is presumed to be guilty of everything, so the more vicious you can be about him, the better everybody feels.

But there is a deeper assumption, which has marred Democratic politics for years. Some Democrats have been unable to face the reality that people have been voting for Republicans because they agree with them. So, these Democrats have invented the comforting theory that they've been losing because they are too virtuous for the country.

According to this theory, Republicans - or usually some omniscient, omnipotent and malevolent strategists, such as Lee Atwater or Karl Rove - have been tricking the American people into voting against their true interests. This year, many Democrats decided, we'll be vicious in return.

The truth, however, is that voters are not idiots. They are capable of independent thought. If you attack your opponent wildly, ruthlessly, they will come to their own conclusions.


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Brooks writes for the New York Times.
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"No greater love..."